nected with the profperity of manufactures; yet it does not appear that there is any violent or general alarm among landholders and farmers. The danger of lofs and difadvantage to thefe, though as certain to them as to the manufacturers, is more diftant and circuitous.

FORTIFICATIONS.

In the midst of an affected acconomy, miniftry, in order to humour the whims, and give employment to the plodding and restlefs genius of the Duke of Richmond, have refolved to lay our large, we had almost faid immenfe fums in fortifications. Forts are to be built on the banks of the lakes of Canada, for the protection of our trade with the Indians. This is to compenfate for the eafy and impolitic ceffion of the paffes into Canada to the North Americans. The Irish nation, at a time when they did not carry their heads fo high as they now do, about half a century ago, built a magazine at Dublin. Dr. Swift, on that occalion, for the last time, exercised his genius for fatyr.

"Behold a proof of Irish fenfe!
"Here Irish fenfe is fcen,

"When nought is left that's worth defence,

"We build a magazine!"

But the works at Plymouth and Portsmouth portend very ferious evils to this country. At a moderate computation, they will require garrifons amounting to 40,000 men. Magazines must be erected and stored with 40,000 rations of provifions. This facrifice is really too colly a gratification to any peer of France, Scotland, or England.

Secondly, Thefe works are by no means neceffary for the defence of Britain, which confifts in its navy, militia, and the native fpirit of the people.

Thirdly, It is pernicious, in as much as it tends to divert our force from the pots in which it may be most advantageously exerted, and to weaken the refources of the nation in cafe of invafion. As the great bulwark of Britain is her navy, and as that is fupported by commerce, commerce fhould be the great object of our care and fedulous attention. If that is protected, new works at Plymouth and Portsmouth will be needlefs: if it is not, they will not avail. And, of the prefent adminiftration, future political hiftorians, perhaps, may affert, that it was a poor compenfation for their commercial conceffions to Ireland, that they erected new fortifications at our principal dock-yards. In general, the idea of taking fhelter within walls and ditches, is new to the British nation, and if fostered, it will naturally diminish, in proportion to its growth, the bold confidence of the English militia, and British feamen.

Again. If our whole confidence be not, as heretofore, placed in the navy, and the fpirit of the people, and we fhould begin to think of refifting an enemy within walls and trenches, fuch fortifications will become neceffary all over the ifland. For there are

many

many other places where an invading army might land, befides Plymouth and Portsmouth. Britain prefents an extended coaft, and France can pour in upon us moft numerous armies. If we do not oppose their entrance into the ifland, they might over-run, and, perhaps, finally fubdue it. We have no frontier towns to protect us, no internal fortreffes to protract our fall and to keep our fate in fufpenfe: oppofed like the Grecians to the innumerable armies of Perfia, we must fight the hereditary foes of our native land at the ftraits of Thermopyla. The Thermopyla of England is the British Channel. This the grand buiwark which the hand of nature has formed for our protection!

CONTINENT OF EUROPE.

Appearances ftill lead us to believe, that peace will be soon settled between the Dutch and the Emperor. The flames of war in Europe will, in all probability, first break out on the confines of Turkey and Ruffia. The Turks, like other conquerors, are more fuccefsful, it would seem, in offenfive than in defensive war. The fury of enthufiafm, which gives ardour to a fudden attack, fubfides under the fatigues of fieges and hoftile invafion. The celerity with which, in the feventh and eighth centuries, they extended their power from the Perfian Gulph to the Straits of Gibraltar, was prodigious: but, in their turn, they have been at different times humbled, by the inroads of the Tartars and Perfians; and, about a century ago, their very existence as a nation was threatened with annihilation, by a small ftate, at prefent but little heard of in the world. In the year 1687, the Venetians, under the conduct of their captain general Morofini and the count Coningfec, reduced under their authority the city of Corinth, and, foon after, the whole of the Morea. Hence they piffed into Scio, and alarmed Cyprus, Rhodes, and the rest of the islands in the Ægean Sea. At laft they threatened to break through the Dardanelles, and even to storm the feat of the Ottoman empire. And this they probably would have accomplished, if the Pope had encouraged their ardour by abfolving, which was the condition they required, certain religious houfes from their vows, and annexing them to the republic in favour of the common cause of Christianity. But this condition the pope, Innocent XI. who was a Milanefe, and more at tached to the natural enemy of Venice, the emperor, than to the republic, refused to grant; and the Venetians, whofe martial fpirit was tempered, as might be expected in the conduct of noble merchants, with fome regard to lofs and gain, defisted from their enterprize. In the fpace of little more than twenty years after thefe tranfactions, the courage of the Turks was ftimulated by the fucceffes of their ally Lewis XIV. to carry the war into the feat of their enemies, and the y made themselves mafters of the island of Candia. So true it is of the Turks, what Livy, an historian not lefs profound than elegant, affirms of mankind in general, that there is naturally more energy ar dipilit in the affailants than in the defendants. Should the enthufi afm of the Turks be by any incident revived, it might make a fuccefsful fally at leaft upon the overbearing power of the Ruffians.

Although

GOVERNOR HASTINGS.

Although no illuminations have exprefied the congratulations of his countrymen, this month is diftinguished by the return of Mr. Haftings from India, who uniting the most profound policy with the utmoft vigour and promptitude of action, and nobly exceeding his delegated powers, as occation required, in the midst of fluctuating councils and the civil convulfions of a difmembered empire, preferved to his country, as if in fpite of herielf, the nobleit dependency any nation did or can poffefs. A celebrated orator, who in the ardour of emulation, propofed to himself as a subject of imication the brightest example of Roman eloquence, looked about like the Roman patriot for fome peculating pro-conful, on whom he might pour out the bittereft invective, and thought he had found one in Mr. Haftings. The governor general of Bengal returns to confront his precipitate accufer, and with an erect front, feems to reply to all the ftudied harangues of the orator, you are delirous, Sir, of appearing a CICERO, but you have not found in me a VERRES,'

The conclufion of our account of Dr. Priestley's Letters to Dr. Horfley is unavoidably poftponed to a future number. ++ Title, Contents, and Index, to Vol. V. of the English Review will be given in our next.

**Communications for this Review are defired to be tranf mitted to Mr. MURRAY, Bookfeller, No. 32, Fleet-ftreet, London; where fubfcribers are requested to give in their names,

IN DE X

то тн Е

BOOKS AND PAMPHLET S.

ABBE Winckelman, account of 47 BALFOUR, Dr. his Treatife on the

56 CAMILLA, a Nove!